Identifying and Advocating Best Practices in the Criminal Justice System. A Texas-Centric Examination of Current Conditions, Reform Initiatives, and Emerging Issues with a Special Emphasis on Capital Punishment.

Monday, 21 December 2009

Kansas Legislature to Consider Repeal in 2010

Kansas will consider abolishing the death penalty next year as death sentences are declining across the United States.

Fewer
people were sentenced to death this year than any other year since
1976, according to a report released Friday by the Death Penalty
Information Center.

The report cites 106 new death sentences
handed down in 2009, compared to 111 in 2008. Both are down
significantly from a decade ago, when 284 death sentences were given
out.

Sen. Tim Owens, R-Overland Park, has scheduled four days
of hearings beginning Jan. 19 on a new bill that would eliminate the
death penalty in Kansas.

A Kansas Judicial Council advisory
committee of lawmakers, judges, prosecutors and defense lawyers helped
rewrite a bill sponsored last year by Sen. Carolyn McGinn, R-Sedgwick.

And:

In Kansas, seeking the death penalty costs four times more in legal
fees than not pursuing it, according to a report released earlier this
month. Figures were compiled by the state's indigent defense fund.

Imprisoning
an inmate facing a death sentence also costs more, according to the
Kansas Department of Corrections. It takes an additional $1,000 a year
to keep an inmate in the isolation cell blocks required for death
penalty inmates rather than in the general prison population.

Those figKansas Department of Correctionsures were part
of a report from the Judicial Council's Death Penalty Advisory
Committee, which rewrote the bill to abolish the state's death penalty.
The Judicial Council analyzes legal issues for the state Legislature
and Supreme Court.

Two Wichita-area cases demonstrate the discrepancy.

Romaine
Douglas was convicted of killing two people in 1999. He received a life
prison sentence with no chance of parole for 100 years.

Gavin
Scott was convicted of killing two people in 1996. He received a death
sentence, which was overturned on appeal. He is set to face another
capital punishment sentencing before a jury in April.

Neither one was the most expensive — or least expensive — case of its kind, according to the Judicial Council report.

If
Douglas lives to be 79 — the average life expectancy for an American
male — the state will have spent about $243,884 to convict him, deal
with appeals and keep him in prison.

So far, the state has spent $750,074 to pursue the death penalty against Scott.

Kansas Attorney General Steve Six has called the death sentence
“just punishment” in some cases and expressed opposition to abolishing
it.

However, budget problems have more states talking about whether the death penalty is worth the expense.

Seeking the death penalty in Kansas costs four times more in legal fees
than not pursuing it, according to a recent report that used figures
from the state’s indigent defense fund.

The state Judicial
Council’s Death Penalty Advisory Committee said in a report issued
earlier this month that it takes an additional $1,000 a year to house a
death-row inmate in required isolation compared with keeping him in the
general prison population.

The council, which analyzes legal
issues for the state Legislature and Supreme Court, rewrote the bill to
abolish the death penalty in Kansas.

Larry Williams expected to wait 10 years to see the death sentence
carried out for his daughter's killer. Now, 13 years later, Williams
said he may have to wait another decade before Gary Kleypas exhausts
his appeals.

Lawyers understand the need for such scrutiny in
death penalty cases, but others like Williams wonder whether the
execution chamber in Lansing will ever be used.

"Oh, it's been
frustrating for me in more ways than one, obviously losing your
daughter but then the long court case," Williams said.

The length
of time it takes to resolve a capital case is one reason the death
penalty costs about 16 times more than life in prison, according to a
2003 Kansas study. States in which executions have been carried out
estimate even higher costs for death sentences.

Kleypas, found guilty of raping and killing
20-year-old Carrie Williams in 1996, was the first person condemned to
die in Kansas in more than 30 years. Since the state reinstated the
death penalty in 1994, no one has been executed.

New Mexico
brought back capital punishment in 1979. By the time New Mexico
repealed the death penalty in March, it had carried out one execution.

"And
he voluntarily gave up his appeal or he would still be on death row,"
said Viki Elkey, director of the New Mexico Coalition to Repeal the
Death Penalty.

As Kansas' first capital punishment case since the
death penalty was reinstated, Kleypas' case has taken more than a
decade because of legal errors and questions about how people here
should be put to death.

The judge presiding over the capital murder case of Israel Mireles
wondered whether the state's money issues could force postponement of
the trial. Butler County District Judge David Ricke said during a
hearing Tuesday that Mireles' trial in the killing of Emily Sander is
scheduled to start Feb. 8 - a week before state-mandated furloughs of
courthouse employees.

Furloughs are currently scheduled for nonjudicial employees around the
state unless legislators restore $3 million in money cut from the
judicial branch.
That would mean no bailiffs to aid jurors and no court reporter to make a record of testimony and evidence.

And:

Kansas Attorney General Steve Six told the judge that trial
preparations with state law enforcement officers as witnesses would
have to be repeated if the trial was continued to another date.

"It could end up costing the state more," said Six, who is helping prosecute the case.

Ricke's best estimate about moving the trial would be before the second round of furloughs in March.

"We could try to do it between furloughs," the judge said.
But trying to move the trial by weeks could turn into months, depending on the already busy schedules of the attorneys.

Melanie Freeman-Johnson, Mireles' attorney, and Six's office have other death penalty cases waiting around the state.
Six's office has at least six other death penalty cases on its docket, with proceedings already scheduled from January through June.

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The StandDown Texas Project

The StandDown Texas Project was organized in 2000 to advocate a moratorium on executions and a state-sponsored review of Texas' application of the death penalty.
To stand down is to go off duty temporarily, especially to review safety procedures.

Steve Hall

Project Director Steve Hall was chief of staff to the Attorney General of Texas from 1983-1991; he was an administrator of the Texas Resource Center from 1993-1995. He has worked for the U.S. Congress and several Texas legislators. Hall is a former journalist.